Моя тётя живёт в этом доме уже тридцать лет.

the house

Breakdown of Моя тётя живёт в этом доме уже тридцать лет.

• мой: my
• в: in
• год: the year

Questions & Answers about Моя тётя живёт в этом доме уже тридцать лет.

Why is the verb in the present tense (живёт) if in English we would say “has lived / has been living”?

Russian does not have a separate present perfect tense. To express “has been living” or “has lived (and still lives)”, Russian normally uses:

• Present tense of an imperfective verb + time expression

So Моя тётя живёт в этом доме уже тридцать лет literally is “My aunt lives in this house already thirty years”, but in English we translate it as “has lived / has been living”.

If you said:

• Моя тётя жила в этом доме тридцать лет.
  → She lived in this house for thirty years (implies this is in the past; she probably no longer lives there).

So живёт focuses on an ongoing situation that started in the past and continues now.

In English we say “for thirty years”. Why is there no word for “for”, and what does уже actually do here?